Coed Code: on reducing inequality and poverty

Coed Code is a group I helped set up, designed to give diversity in tech a nudge. We do our best to create a warm and welcoming environment, with healthy snacks and drinks that aren’t beer. There are plenty of events out there already aimed at tech bros, and Coed Code isn’t one of them. In many of our industry fora, especially when it comes to startup culture, people are so busy talking about cool technology, they never really seem to take a breath to ask about the social impacts or implications of the work we do. It is refreshing therefore to be reminded there are people working from the outside in, trying to solve real world problems. So I am excited about our next meetup tomorrow November 21st 2017 at Labs.com in Camden Market – you should sign up here – which promises to be one of our best yet, with a fantastic group of dynamic, high-achieving speakers, sharing first hand experiences of solving real world problems at scale. Step forward Hephzi Pemberton, Kavita Kapoor, Jenny Mulholland, Taryl Law, Elena Sinel and Anne Currie. Check it out.

Keynote – Hephzi Pemberton

Hephzi is a business founder, angel investor and believer in the power of good business to transform society. After completing a bachelor’s degree at Oxford University, Hephzi began her career in Investment Banking at Lehman Brothers. In 2009, she co-founded Kea Consultants, a financial headhunting firm that specialises in investment and high-growth organisations, which she quickly grew into a profitable and sustainable business

In 2016, Hephzi founded Kiteka to enable female entrepreneurs in Sub-Saharan Africa to access digital opportunities through mobile technology. Research shows that women across this region are 25% less likely to own a phone than men, but when they do it directly increases their income and the opportunities for themselves and their families. The vision for Kiteka is to create an all-female, all-mobile network across Africa that is connected to the digital economy and enabled through technology.

Next up will be a panel discussion on how Technology is being used to eradicate inequality and poverty. Our panellists are

Kavita Kapoor

Kavita is COO at the Micro:bit Educational Foundation. She is a programmer, software designer and technology strategist. Although she has won a BAFTA she isn’t a Bollywood star. Yet. She looks after Asia strategy for Tido Music, and is a published author. She has previously held positions at London 2012 and Channel 4 Television.

Jenny Mulholland

Jenny studied Physics at university and entered IT in 2006 as a graduate C++ programmer within Symbian’s Professional Services department, helping Motorola, Fujitsu and others make phones based on Symbian OS. In more recent years Jenny’s professional interests have extended into project management, and her current role in technical pre-sales where she helps Softwire’s customers explore their requirements and writes bids for new projects.

Taryl Law

Taryl is an experienced educational social worker, specializing in work with young people with learning disabilities and their families. She is also cofounder of How Do I, an award-winning social enterprise that supports life and vocational skill development for people with additional needs, raising aspirations and providing real-time support into employment and independent living through assistive technology.

Elena Sinel

Elena is the founder of Acorn Aspirations, an education start-up which designs learning experiences where young people across the globe interact with leading experts in artificial intelligence, virtual, augmented and mixed realities, entrepreneurs, designers and marketeers to create solutions that solve real life problems.

Prior to this, she worked as international specialist consultant with 9 years of experience in poverty reduction strategies, rural livelihood development and poverty alleviation with a specific focus on creation of small and medium enterprise development, product design, marketing and fundraising in Central Asia, the Balkans, Ethiopia and Bangladesh.

Panel Moderator – Anne Currie

Anne is an Chief Strategist at Container Solutions. An engineer who is enthusiastic about container technology and everything else. She’s been helping to build complex software systems for over 20 years and is a co-founder of the Force12 project